Where's the beef? Bachmann holds event at beef company in IA

DES MOINES, IA -- Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann cut beef while touring Amend Packing Company here this morning, continuing to focus on jobs in the Hawkeye State. She also gave a statement on Iranian President Ahmadinejad.

NBC's Alex Moe

"Is that all right? Is that straight enough?" Bachmann asked the owner of the family-run business that has been in operation since 1869 as she precisely cut a few ribeyes.

Bachmann, who wore blue gloves and a matching frock, took questions from local small business owners inside the chilled cutting room.

"Washington is hurting and no longer helping," Bachmann said to the handful of attendees about government regulations on companies like the meat company.

She told an electric company owner who asked about President Obama's health-care law that it will raise premiums and cost jobs. Bachmann also noted there was "nothing that she's seen" in Obama's debt-reduction plan that she would be able to support. Other questions were raised on taxes and her campaign in light of recent poll numbers.

With cow carcasses hanging in the meat cooler behind her, Bachmann -- whose grandfather owned a meat market in Iowa -- read a statement on Iranian President Ahmadinejad and took a few questions from the press.

"I call upon President Obama to stop Ahmadinejad from coming to the United Nations," Bachmann said. "When mad men in positions of power like Ahmadinejad make wild and genocidal threats against another nation like Israel, we should listen to them and we should take what necessary counter measures to stop them and their evil intents."